Dr Stone Episode 19 Review

The Road To Modern Technology

Turns out Hyoga is actually a significant threat in that at least he has a brain. Sure his attack on the bridge ended up being foiled through Gen’s betrayal but apparently all of that was a diversion in the first place while his partner, a pink wearing girl who jumps about like a gymnast, sets fire to the entire village and burns down the bridges. However, given how close Hyoga and Tsukasa seem in the brief flash back we get of Hyoga being revived it kind of makes sense that he isn’t just a muscle head.

As for Tsukasa, I have to wonder how he is not dying of boredom in the kingdom of his own making. Surrounded by meat-heads and fan-girls surely can’t be that entertaining and while he keeps talking about building a new world his process seems more about preventing progress from the hunter-gatherer model at any cost. I wonder if he’d still feel that way if he was sick and a really basic medication could fix him.

However with so much focus on Hyoga and Tsukasa, there’s little time for anyone from the village to get screen time and largely they are reduced to reaction shots and sound-bites. What this does is make it very apparent how much the villagers added to this anime in terms of fun viewing as while I didn’t dislike this episode, it didn’t have quite the same appeal as the episodes that focused exclusively on the village.

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The exception being the focus on Suika. As the villagers regroup at the science shack, she takes it upon herself to lead the attackers away and starts to head up the mountain. Almost supernaturally, Senku seems to sense a change in the wind and hops into pursuit with Kohaku and they arrive in time, wearing gas masks, to save Suika from a poisonous gust of wind. I know Senku is super-smart and all but there’s really no logical reason for him to have been able to figure out that the wind was going to blow the gas exactly that way at that time or that Suika would head that far up the mountain. It is almost as though the writers, having established that Senku is smart, now feel that he can just know anything they need him to regardless of how far-fetched it might be.

With a new threat established as Hyoga has most definitely reported Senku’s survival to Tsukasa, Senku has to come up with a new plan. I’m a little surprised by his decision though it isn’t a terrible one (I’m just not sure it is the most time efficient). Yep, he’s taking on Taiju’s request from way back at the start of the season and he’s going to try to make a smart phone. Okay, not so smart but at least a portable communication. I can’t wait to see how this one plays out.